Pols look to limit drone surveillance

BOSTON -- Calling warrantless drone surveillance an attack on privacy, a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Rep. Colleen Garry and Sen. Robert Hedlund has pitched legislation seeking to restrict the use of unmanned aerial vehicles.

Related bills are up for consideration in at least 30 other states, with legislators across the country looking to put in place a framework regulating the potential use by law-enforcement agencies of remotely operated aircraft.

"This is not abstract," said Gavi Wolfe, legislative counsel for the Massachusetts chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. "This is coming soon to a sky near you.

The ACLU helped draft the measure that would ban weaponized drones and require any agency, municipality or government body in Massachusetts to get a probable-cause warrant before using unmanned aircraft to collect information.

Garry, a Dracut Democrat, said she and her colleagues wanted to make sure privacy protections keep pace with evolving technologies.

"There's a real difference of opinions in the legislators who are on there, some real conservatives and some real progressives," Garry said. "I think it just shows how concerned we all are."

Politicians at the national level are expressing similar concerns. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul brought the drones to the forefront of national conversation with his 13-hour filibuster of the nomination of CIA Director John Brennan.

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Paul's speech focused primarily on whether weaponized drones could be used to kill American citizens but also questioned how and when drone use is deemed appropriate.

Hedlund, R-Weymouth, said he hopes Paul's action drew attention to the need for regulations around the use of drones.

"We need to keep technology in check in a manner that keeps us safe and makes certain aspects of life quicker and easier, yet protect our personal lives from unnecessary drone coverage and data retention," Hedlund said. "We need legislation and discussion to keep up with the advancements of technology."

Privacy advocates say it's the stealthy nature of drones that make the aircraft particularly worrisome.

"They're piloted down below somewhere, and it's eyes in the sky," Wolfe said. "Eyes in the sky make people nervous -- I think legitimately -- because we're talking about kind of an unprecedented opportunity for intrusion into private spaces, without people being aware that they're being watched."

That potential for intrusion, Wolfe said, makes it necessary to impose some basic standards, a path most state governments are now pursuing.

The legislatures in New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Maine are also among those that are discussing proposals to limit drone use, according to the ACLU. A bill proposed in Wyoming died in committee, but two drone-restricting bills cleared Virginia's legislature and are now awaiting the governor's signature.

Most of the bills introduced in state legislatures are similar to Garry and Hedlund's, requiring a probable-cause warrant for collecting information via drone use.

The proposal now on Beacon Hill goes further than most, prohibiting surveillance based solely on activities protected under the First Amendment. This means law-enforcement agencies couldn't arbitrarily watch protesters or members of a specific religious group without cause.

It would also mandate that agencies can only collect data using drones on the person or group that is the subject of their warrant. Any incidentally collected information on others could not be transmitted, used in court or stored for longer than 24 hours.

The bill does make allowances for emergency situations where lives are at imminent risk and obtaining a warrant would take too much time, Garry said.

"In a situation like a kidnapping or something like that, they would be able to use drones, but they'd have to prove after the fact that it was a true threat," she said.

According to a report from the Congressional Research Service, the Federal Aviation Administration predicts up to 30,000 drones, flown by government and commercial entities, could fill the skies in the next 20 years.

State Sen. Mike Barrett, one of the bill's co-sponsors, said he supports the exploration of drone technology but believes regulation is necessary.

"I'm convinced the technology as a whole has many valid uses," said Barrett, a Lexington Democrat whose district includes Chelmsford, Concord, Carlisle and Bedford. "The use of drones to monitor traffic, to map wildlife migration, to detect all kinds of public-health hazards on the ground -- one can envision the use of these contraptions to gather all kinds of legitimate data without using people in every case. That being said, there are genuine privacy questions."

State Rep. Stephen DiNatale, D-Fitchburg, said he's glad legislation restricting drone use has been filed.

"I find it a little unusual that we have to go to this extent, to categorically map out the fact that we don't want this kind of technology used against American citizens," he said. "I think we have constitutional protections in place."

As of April 2012, when the FAA released a list of agencies within the country authorized to use drones, no public or private group in Massachusetts had received such permission.

Wolfe, of the ACLU, said that could soon change, however. The Metropolitan Law Enforcement Council, a consortium of more than 40 local police departments and law-enforcement agencies south of Boston, has applied for drone authorization

"Drones will be in Massachusetts, I can say that with absolute certainty, in the next number of years," Wolfe said. "It's just a matter of how fast."

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